No. 395  Feb 24, 2013

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God. —Romans 12:1-2

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TV, MEDIA & DEFINING "NORMAL"

Holiness Without

No. 395  |  Feb 24, 2013   DC RealTalk   CATECHISM   Study   The Church   Cover   Living   Preacher's Confession   Zion   Donate   Previous

Lately I’ve been watching YouTube videos of Pastor Gino Jennings of the First Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Philadelphia, and it’s finally occurred what’s been bothering me and why I seem so hard on Church Folk. Pastor Jennings’ teachings are very familiar to me because I was raised under the Holiness doctrine, a hard-core Christian orthodoxy that teaches strict discipleship and places confounding barriers between the seeker and salvation, not the least of which is the insistence that a seeker become “Holy Ghost filled” in order to actually be saved, and speaking in tongues is the only true evidence of that indwelling. In essence, the Holiness doctrine (or, simply “Holiness” as we referenced it) teaches us we have to all but become cat burglars to break our way into Heaven, and that our relationship with the Almighty is a fragile one prone to sleepless nights worrying over unrepented sin, which could cause us to lose the very salvation we have fought so long and so hard to win in the first place.

My point is not to debate Pastor Jennings or anyone else within the Holiness doctrine, but to make known that a refresher course in this orthodoxy has illuminated my own hang-ups with so-called “Church Folk.” Having grown more enlightened and informed under the tutelage of fundamentalist white evangelical seminarians, I’ve struggled with an ever-widening gap between what I’ve learned, what God has revealed to me, and the hard-core orthodoxy I’d spent my formative years under. In later years, I found myself transplanted from Holiness and Apostolic discipleship into the Baptist tradition, ultimately becoming ordained as a Southern Baptist pastor (while making it known to the church I certainly was not a Southern Baptist; they didn’t seem to mind). Even so, the ethical and doctrinal foundation of Holiness is something that sticks with you the rest of your life. It is this fundamental Holiness doctrine in me that causes conflict with the foolishness we routinely encounter in our African American church tradition today, and thus drives me to my word processor.   CONTINUED

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